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Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Well 2013 was amazing ...
Lots of personal growth. Lots of hours at the gym and lots of kilos lost Yay!

Which in retrospect was a much needed year in preparation for the ride that is 2014.

I had in my head already decided that 2014 was the year for me to head back into the workforce. Get a real job after being a self supported artist/crafter for over 4 years.

As fate would have it, the shop I was a part of decided to close down ... forcing my hand a little sooner then later.
The real idea of working for the man in a typical 9-5 job really had me on such a downer.
So ensued a couple of weeks of assessing life and all that I wanted from it. I still wanted to lead a creative life and that was the one thing I knew for sure.
So when we heard that the space we were a part of previously was being made available for new ventures there was a very short period of throwing ideas around and coming up with our new venture ...

A new shop created by with my crafty partner in crime Anna of Polly Pratt clothing.
We had worked together in this space for over 4 years, so we had a good idea of how we worked together as a crafty duo. We loved the space and had called it home for the last few years so it seemed a natural progression.
Of course the major difference was having between 8 and 10 people running it previously to it really becoming our own and being run just by the two of us.
Which also means being paid for ... just by the two of us. Crazy scary stuff people.

Timing was bad as I had not a cent in the bank, my stock levels were really low and I had no arrangement for childcare ...

But if I was to wait for the timing to be perfect the opportunity would have passed me by. So we worked like mad for the last 2 months of 2013, saving money and building up our stock levels ready for beginning in January.

The space was long overdue for a paint ... so we closed for the first 2 weeks to renovate and snaz the place up.

It was a blurr of 12 - 14 hour days ... sanding, painting, building walls and knocking them down. Absolute mayhem. But we did it ...

Two crafty friends, a whole lotta faith and not much sleep ...

We have been in the new shop for nearly 3 months now and every day it grows more and more into such an inviting and fun space to work in.

We represent the work of more then 10 makers including our own labels Finki and Polly Pratt and that will only grow. There is an artist space we offer to a new artist each month and a Saturday market day for new designers to trial there range in store for a day.

It's early days, but we love this space and hope it grows into something that people love coming to see for years to come.

We are much more active on Facebook than blogs these days too, so keep up to date with all that is going on at our Ruby's Nest FB Page.